There has conventionally been known a multilayer piezoelectric element having a laminated body that a plurality of piezoelectric layers are laminated through an internal electrode interposed therebetween, and having a pair of external electrodes formed on the side surface of the laminated body. Generally, in the multilayer piezoelectric element (in some cases hereinafter referred to simply as an “element”), the internal electrode is not formed over the entire main surface of the piezoelectric layer, thereby having a so-called partial electrode structure. The internal electrodes of the partial electrode structure are alternately exposed at opposite side surfaces of the laminated body, and alternately connected to a pair of external electrodes.
In the element thus having the partial electrode structure, the region where the internal electrode is printed, and the region where no internal electrode is printed differ from each other in the shrinkage percentages during sintering. Therefore, after sintering, residual stress is induced in the element. In order to decrease the residual stress, for example, Patent document 1 and Patent document 2 have proposed to decrease the residual stress by forming a shrinkage percentage adjustment layer (a dummy electrode) at the region where no internal electrode is printed.    Patent document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-242023    Patent document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-102646